Huge problems with my 3yr old ds..

[shhhh]

I have posted here. Can anyone on this board help me..?

tia x

if your in london i would be tempted to help you i am a nanny of 12 years and i have worked in schools too with children with behavioural problems from attention seeking adhd austism and ones thats need contant reassurance.
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sounds like your on verde of breakdown from stress and tirenesses

aw thanks tiggergirl...Im northwest so a distance away..sadly .

You are right, yes I do feel on the verge of a breakdown. Dh has been working from home alot recently and I feel that the dk's orutine esp morning is ruined. Dh doesn't see it that way, just feels he's helping yet doesn't see that his help is leaving destruction.

I usually get up dressed, kids dressed etc and am downstairs for 8am, ready to empty dishwasher,sort breakie,lunches etc and off to school by 8.40am.
This has been the routine since dd started school in sept (6 months) and has worked. Esp when dh was working away from home it ran perfectly.

BUT now since dh has been home I feel its harder work. Dh (because ds wakes earlier now) will take him downstairs for breakie first, then get him dressed etc whic in turn messes it up for dd because she then wants breakier before dressing so means I have to do the same...then they get side tracked with toys etc and I feel its done back to front and takes longer. I also then end up with hours of kids squabbeling,running around before school instead of 10 mins iykwim..

Dh doesn't see it and is now saying im getting nasty with ds..I know I am and I can't help it.

I constantly feel im now being undermined and ffs this is my job. I don't interfere with dh's...

sorry to rant etc but im very low atm..

3 year old boys are infuriating, but he sounds particularly difficult. Have you talked to your HV? Is she helpful? SOmeone I know got her little boy seen y a paediatrician at the hospital. He sounds similar to your DS. What about his nursery? Have they said anything to you about his behaviour? They might be able to help as they've probaly sen hundreds of kids with al sorts of problems. If he has SN (sounds like he might have IMO but this doesn't necessarily mean he'll be slapped with a label for the rest of his life) they might be able to offer some support or specialist help for him.

DHs are really like children themselves sometimes aren't they? Mine sometimes likes to "help" too and although it's nice that he wants too, he often makes things worse. Could you give him a job to do? eg "Cold you do the dishwasher/ make lunches/ stuff the washing machine for me? That would realy help me out, thanks", Leaving you "free" to get the dcs ready?

thing is tabby, in relation to dh..there will be a time when he is working away again and I would rather keep in a routine now that I can easily manage when he's away from home iykwim.

I had it before but since christmas dh has been home about 95% of the time and the routine has kind of gone...

Ds is so angelic and so cute but then there is a percentage of the time when I so want to walk away from him and that makes me sad..

I find it hard as well as so many people label boys as "mummy's boys" and tbh I don't feel ds is. He hugs/kisses when he wants to and it upsets me if you ask "do you love mummy" he replies "No, but I love daddy"
Yeah, maybe im playing into his hands but it saddens me he can be like this..

I wonder if this might be to do with your DH working away. My boys are all over their Daddy at the weekends and when he gets home from work, but I think it is mainly because they see me all the time! DS1 went through a phase of saying, "I love Daddy and DS2 loves Mummy", which was a bit upsetting, but now when he's wailing at bedtime, it will sometimes be for me and sometimes for DH. I think at that age they sometimes don't really know what the are saying. He may well grow out of the whole thing, and his behaviour might settle down when he starts school. Sorry you're finding things hard.

I wonder if this might be to do with your DH working away. My boys are all over their Daddy at the weekends and when he gets home from work, but I think it is mainly because they see me all the time! DS1 went through a phase of saying, "I love Daddy and DS2 loves Mummy", which was a bit upsetting, but now when he's wailing at bedtime, it will sometimes be for me and sometimes for DH. I think at that age they sometimes don't really know what the are saying. He may well grow out of the whole thing, and his behaviour might settle down when he starts school. Sorry you're finding things hard.

Eek what happened there?!

Thanks tabby .

Just to update you:

We had a huge row yesterday (dh & I)and tbh I felt my marriage was over but today I can look at the situation a bit clearer.
Dh & I finally decided yesterday to allow me to get back into the routine and although dh is home atm he will take a back seat.

Ds woke today at 5.30am and I planned for us to wake at 7am. I went into him as he needed a wee and explained it was still bed time and said he could either sleep or play quietly. Thought maybe if he stops up he will realise one day that he doesn't come out his room anyway till everyone is ready for breakfast so around 7.45am.

I went back to bed. He was fine then around 6.30am was shouting for daddy. I got up early and ds never came out of his room till 7.45 once dd & I were ready.

Yes,he shouted and screamed,and played and shouted some more...BUT I succeeded iykiwm.

Today I have had a lovely day with him and realise I do love him . He's been tired and I have told him maybe waking at 6am isn';t helping...

Maybe/hopefully tomorrow will be easier. I guess if I persevere it will get easier...
Thanks though for your help x

Stick with it and good luck!

I will do .

He has gone to bed tonight, usual time (7pm) and for the last hour or 2 has been soooo tired..BUT I kept him going and kept reminding him that if he sleeps till we wake him in the morning then he won't be so tired coming up to bed time...

Fingers crossed....

Im also trying to heap praise onto him for any little thing he does well..

Sorry to interject but your ds sounds identical to mine.
But mine never slept through the night till he was 4 and he woke early exactly like yours.
He was destructive, difficult and i couldnt trust him in a room alone ever.
He needed and still needs to be walked twice a day now. He is 6 nearly 7.

I put him in preschool and play school as i struggled day to day and needed to be away from him...to cope when he was with me.
I stopped going out for months on end, couldnt go to friends houses, was stressed going to any where public with him.
had no family help or support, got the impression that my family didnt like being around him.

I became depressed, when he was 3 i asked for ADs. After about a week i felt "better", after 2 i felt great, i felt much more able to manage his behaviour, i actually felt like a mum to him. Only stayed on ads for about 18 months, came off them and have been ok since.

Now he is older, he is still hard work.
he sleeps like a dream but is lovely company, he is goregeous.
he was my 1st, i made the decision not to have any more kids as i simply cannot put myself through the living torture that was bieng a mum to me in those 1st few years.
I can honestly say that things will get better. Stick with it, he wil be fine and you are doing great, i know how you feel, i have been there.

Every night as part of my boys routine, i read to him, then i kiss him, then i tell him 3 hings that he has done today that have made me smile, and/or proud.
habit.
some nights i have to be honest all i could think of was " havent you breathed well today" because i cannot think of anything at all that he has done good today!!!
This worked well, and made me end the day on a positive.

awww what lovely posts meatntattypie .

Thankyou .

I suffered with pnd when dd (4) was born and also when ds (3) was born..I wasn't straight away with ds (he was born with a bowel disorder and subjected to various op's/hospital stays etc) so i think I was on auto pilot .

In fact, I just noticed yesterday that I haven';t had any ad's for around a month . I think I just forgot to take them and thought well maybe I don't need them..BUT now starting to have a rethink...

Must admit, the last few nights I have started to change dd & ds's night routine slightly. I don't usually bath/shower then every night due to lack of time etc BUT I have soike to dh and think maybe it should now be something we do as part of their wind down time...I also think maybe because of their ages they will benefit from more washes .

Thats a lovely idea about telling them things they have done well each day, a tip I will take on board . thankyou x

i honestly question if it was ds or me that was the cause of his behaviour.

He is quite different when i am feeling ok.

Bedtime routine was my saviour, i lived with strict routine, it got me through.
I counted down the minutes till bedtime, and some times was desperate for DH to come through the door at night.
I kept busy in the days, like you do with your son, it took me allot of effort to do it.

Now when i think back, i dont know how i didnt run out of the door, jusm in my car and drive till i ran out of petrol, then jumped of a building to end it all.
But i didnt and i now am fine.

In fact, (between you and me) we are trying for another baby becuase i am convinced that i cant possibly have another like ds

See I wonder the same, is it me or the dk's.. BUT they are the same with dh so I don't always beat myself up about it.

Im a sahm so very strict with routine, its my only sanity .
Both the dk's have always been in bed by 7pm at the latest,I would be up the walls if not.

I know what you mean about counting down the minutes. I also totally understand about the driving till you run out of petrol. Monday I so wanted out of this family life. I saw no way of things changing..

I took ds out all day today, dropped dd at school and then spent most of the morning at the local park with ds on his bike,once home it was "playtime outside" .

Im sooooo tired now, god knows how ds does it and still wants more..

Ahh good luck with the ttc. You are right, you can't have 2 the same...
As I originally said, had we had ds 1st we wouldn't have had more... dd is sooo and was soo different to ds. Yeah we had issues but I never remember them like this .

We are also wanting another, but I don't know if I have the energy for a 3rd. My cut off point is aug,but 99% of me says if we can have another then we will .
I guess you hope and wish things are different.

Good luck xx

I do wish and hope that he was different i would even use the word "normal" because he is and always was different to all my friends children.

I feel like i have been cheated. Cheated out of the joy of a normal happy baby, toddler and child.
I spent his ealry years so exhausted and stressed that i thought i was going mad. Desperate for sleep, and i mean desperate for 3 hours unbroken sleep. Desperate for a break from it all.

I can laugh now at the daft things i did out of shear exhaustion, i got to Morrisons car park and discovered that i still had my big pink fluffy slippers on, thought my peddals felt funny!
Putting my bag in the fridge and the milk in the cupbourd......crazy crazy stuff

ah bless you .

LOL at the pink fluffy slippers ! Ahhh you will look back fondly when your ds is about to become a parent himself...
Ohh..how both dh & my parents go on about "payback" time .

shhhh, how close to 3 is he? He sounds a lot like my ds when he was turning 3. He has been getting steadily better since then. He is still hard work at 3.6, but he is no longer as wild as he was and I can trust him to behave properly around other children. Also I can now control him quite well by counting - in fact I feel like I am counting at him all day but it works to get him to do what I want (sit down to put on shoes, come to table, stop doing whatever). If he doesn't comply before 3 he gets sent to his room. I usually only have to say 'do I need to count' or '1' to get a result. If time out isn't working for you yet this probably won't work now, but maybe in the future?

Also ds went through a stage of waking and wanting to play at night. Now, I am very AP about sleeping - we cosleep and lie down with him to get him to sleep (only way to cope with his poor sleeping, really) but this was too much. He was told that our room was for sleeping and that if he disturbed us he had to go in another room. We had to carry him screaming out into the hall a few times and then it stopped.

A lot of what meatntaattypie said is familiar to me. I felt terribly isolated last year because there were so few places I could take ds. I lost a lot of my pre child friends because I couldn't go out and I couldn't make new friends because I was too busy chasing him and everyone was probably thinking what an awful parent I was anyway. I don't think I was depressed but I do feel quite traumatised by the whole experience. I've also had to send him to preschool (well, I probably would have sent him anyway but not have been so relieved about it). But as I say, he is much better now anyway.

I should add, because I feel bad now about venting, that ds can be adorable and he is certainly adored by us.

Oh, meatntattypie, I have a dd too now and she is a very different personality. She's only 15 months so I don't know what she will be like as an older toddler but I do think she will be easier.